Paul Büttner

[eschiss1]

I have the score of symphony no.3 in D-flat major (finale in, and ends in, C# minor) on my table borrowed from U. Houston. (edited)

[tuatara442442]

I have the score of symphony no.3 in D-flat major (finale in, and ends in, in C# minor) on my table borrowed from U. Houston.

The third one is really amusing. It borrows from Schoenberg's Pelleas a clarinet passage not long into Mov I, and the beginning of Mov II is entirely from Busoni's PC.

[Alan Howe]

Grand larceny or respectful borrowing?

[Ilja]

Other people in the Dresden music scene of the 1920s and 1930s were certainly guilty of the former...

But seriously, I think this may be a case of unconscious appropriation, where after humming a tune for a while you start thinking you created it yourself - quite a well-documented psychological phenomenon. Also, it's just that single melodic line, the rest of the movement sounds nothing like Busoni.

Edit: I just checked, and Busoni's concerto was performed in Dresden in July of 1909; so it's quite possible that Büttner picked up the melody then and there.

[eschiss1]

Back when I was attempting to compose, I remember hearing one of Beethoven's cello works in concert, had never heard it before, rondo tune stuck. I soon forgot who wrote it and some years later (just) started  writing the opening of a piano quintet on a very similar theme, thinking it mine (after checking it wasn't by the composers who it brought to mind. Then I heard the Beethoven on the radio and that was that. So yep.

[Alan Howe]

Raff >>> Tchaikovsky?

[eschiss1]

If that's a response to that article, none of us wrote it...

[Mark Thomas]

I imagine Alan is referencing Tchaikovsky's presumably unconscious (but remarkably direct) copying of a theme from the slow movement of Raff's 10th Symphony in that of his own 5th Symphony a few years later.

[tuatara442442]

Back when I was attempting to compose, I remember hearing one of Beethoven's cello works in concert, had never heard it before, rondo tune stuck. I soon forgot who wrote it and some years later (just) started  writing the opening of a piano quintet on a very similar theme, thinking it mine (after checking it wasn't by the composers who it brought to mind. Then I heard the Beethoven on the radio and that was that. So yep.

I've experienced that, too. I unconsciously took the opening phrase of Halm's Symphony, slightly adjusted it, and used it as the theme in a piano sonatina. Fortunately not too long after that I realized where I got that tune from.

[Alan Howe]

I imagine Alan is referencing Tchaikovsky's presumably unconscious (but remarkably direct) copying of a theme from the slow movement of Raff's 10th Symphony in that of his own 5th Symphony a few years later.

Indeed. Also Raff 3/iv and Tchaikovsky 6/iii. Very obvious. Happens all the time in music, e.g. Schubert 9/iv and Beethoven 9/iv. Sometimes it's unconscious, sometimes it's deliberate homage, sometimes it's grand larceny! No idea about Büttner 3's borrowings - perhaps someone can pick out the passages involved from this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSejYbP-y3E

[eschiss1]

ntm Brahms 4/ii's opening bar overheard various places throughout Stanford symphony 3/iii...
Re Buttner 3, as the work is thoroughly PD, I could phone-photo the "offending" pages and upload scans to an account if I figure out which to do.

[eschiss1]

(which is why, apologies to hangmen everywhere, it's not the idea, it's the execution. There's only so many ideas in music, literature, art... but many ways to see them through.)

(apologies for banality and horrible punmanship.)